It’s not as easy as you think to dump a bucket of pig’s blood on a prom queen.

Just ask Paul Melone. That’s his life’s goal these days. Or at least his career goal: a direct hit on poor little Carrie White. And if that’s not hard enough, he needs to make the splash in an artful way. Not just once, but about 34 times during the four-week run of SpeakEasy Stage Company’s "Carrie: The Musical," playing May 10 to June 7 at the Boston Center for the Arts.

"We’re facing all kinds of challenges," says Melone, director of the show and general manager at SpeakEasy. "You’ve got actors wearing microscopic microphones, and it’s not going to sound too good if you get gooey stage blood all over the microphones. And then there’s the question of where does all the blood go once it’s been dumped? It’s not the end of the show. There’s still more scenes. And now the stage is wet and slippery. And then there’s the dry-cleaning bills."

When director Brian De Palma iconically poured blood on waifish Sissy Spacek in the classic 1976 film version of novelist Stephen King’s thriller, he had countless takes and camera angles to get it right. Melone gets once chance.

It’s just one of the challenges that’s keeping him up at night. Anyone entering the theater to see "Carrie: The Musical" will presumably have certain expectations: telekinesis, fire, murder, and at the end, all holy hell breaking loose.

But Melone says it will be a big mistake if he tries to match all those expectations in the SpeakEasy’s relatively modest 200-seat theater at the Boston Center for the Arts.

"I’m trying to come up with simple ways to do tricks that are surprising and unexpected," says Melone, describing his approach to staging Carrie’s telekinetic powers. "We’ve all seen those David Copperfield-style illusions that kind of short-circuit your brain because they’re so hard to explain. I’m not going to do any of those. Not only are they a little beyond our capabilities, I’m not interested in that."

He says he’s more interested in the heart of the story: that little piece of hell called high school.

" ‘Carrie’ is a story that refuses to die," says Melone. "A bullied high school teenager who has fantasies of revenge. It’s about humiliation. And it’s about the social struggles faced by all teenagers: Who am I? How do I fit in?"

But he also recognizes that "Carrie" is a story about a girl with superpowers, and he’s hoping to give the audience an ending they’ll remember.

"That’s when we’ll use everything in our arsenal of tricks," he says.

Page 2 of 3 - There are a couple surprising things about "Carrie: The Musical." First, it’s not a campy version of King’s breakout novel. It’s easy to think that "Carrie: The Musical" are three words that just don’t belong together, and that the only possible staging should be led by Boston’s famed director of camp. Ryan Landry.

The other surprising thing is that SpeakEasy has chosen to stage a musical that’s found more infamy than fame since it debuted in 1988. From the start, it was a dud. An embarrassment for the Royal Shakespeare Company where it was born – yes, that Royal Shakespeare Company – "Carrie: The Musical" was dead on arrival when it landed in New York. The New York Times called it "one of the gaudiest disasters in Broadway history." The production hemorrhaged even more red ink than red blood: The show is considered one of the most expensive flops of all time.

The creators – composer Michael Gore, lyricist Dean Pitchford and book writer Lawrence D. Cohen – disappeared into the corner to lick their wounds. But, remarkably, they never gave up on the idea that a show called "Carrie: The Musical" could work. They re-emerged, 24 years later, with something new – "a smaller, leaner, scrappier version," says Melone. Although this attempt was received far more warmly than the first, this one also faded rather quietly into the night. With this modest track record, "Carrie" arrives at the SpeakEasy.

" ‘Carrie’ is kind of a classic SpeakEasy show," says Melone, who’s drawn praise for his direction of "Adding Machine: The Musical" and "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson." "I think SpeakEasy has a good sensibility and vision for what you might call ‘new American musical theater.’ And it has a history of choosing plays that weren’t super-successful elsewhere, and being creative about staging them in a new way in a 200-seat theater."

Melone is protective of "Carrie." He says one of his biggest concerns is to prevent the show from slipping into camp. But he knows there will be times when people laugh, and that’s OK.

"The audience is going to be so close to the stage," says Melone. "They’re going to get uncomfortable during the show, and that’s all right; they should get uncomfortable. Going to high school is uncomfortable. Going to gym class is uncomfortable. Showering with everyone else after gym class is uncomfortable."

Melone had a chance to speak with the creators of the show and get some guidance about the pitfalls of staging "Carrie." And avoiding unintentional campiness was one of the areas where he sought advice.

They told him to remain committed to his vision and to plow through, Melone remembers, "then the audience will go along with you."

In the end, Melone draws confidence from the fact that he’s dealing with material that’s truly classic. The show’s themes of bullying, religious fanaticism and the turbulence of adolescence are perhaps even more relevant now than when King wrote the novel. Melone says, "People will be doing some version of ‘Carrie’ as long as there are American high schools."